Ravel Toccata

[klm46]

Is Ravel's 'Toccata' from his 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' supposed to be pedalled all the way through to turn it into an impressionist-type piece, or should more discretion be while pedalling?   Is the piece supposed to sound like Debussy or does it have to be clearer?
 
Thanks!

[fnork]

Have you never heard a recording of it? It sounds as though you havent - noone would use the pedal all of the time, and this piece has really nothing to do with impressionism - Ravels music rarely is impressionistic - occasionally it may SOUND impressionistic though.
As the title of the suite suggests, it draws inspiration from baroque music. I hardly use any pedal for the first two pages; after that, you have some lyrical sections which need to be pedalled, and after that, you are constantly alternating between using and not using pedal (for instance, there's a section marked "staccato" - to be played with no pedal - and then a few bars later "sostenuto" - to be played WITH pedal -, then back to the "staccato" part).

Clarity/precision is the way to go if you want to play this piece, so use pedal SPARINGLY. It is fiendishly difficult to play.

[nicco]

Ravels music rarely is impressionistic

eh? He was clearly influenced by other styles such as jazz, asian music and folk music, not to mention composers like mozart and couperin, but claiming his music isnt impressionistic is down right wrong.

Ravel and Debussy were, however, clearly the defining composers of the impressionist movement.

[fnork]

I said his music RARELY is impressionistic - MOST of his output is NOT related to impressionism. This is a very important issue because I constantly hear pianists who play pieces like the prelude from Le Tombeau terribly mushy, pedal all over the place, rubato, not paying attention to the text etc etc, and it is probably because they have an idea about Ravel being an impressionist composer so he should be played like Debussys "Images" or something like that. In Ravels orchestration, the opening of the prelude is played by the oboe, it is very melodic, so it should be played the same way on the piano, making a melody out of these figuration. Use pedal sparingly. The way some pianists play the menuet or forlane from this work makes you wonder if they know that these are dances that baroque composers used in suites.

Quoting Wikipedia:

"Ravel considered himself in many ways a classicist. He relied on traditional forms and structures as ways of presenting his new and innovative harmonies. He often masked the sections of his structure with transitions that disguised the beginnings of the motif. This is apparent in his Valses nobles et sentimentales — inspired by Franz Schubert's collections, Valses nobles and Valses sentimentales — where the seven movements begin and end without pause, and in his chamber music where many movements are in sonata-allegro form, hiding the change from developmental sections to recapitulation."

"Musical Impressionism was based in France, and the French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are generally considered to be the two "great" Impressionists. However, composers are generally not as accurately described by the term "Impressionism" as painters in the genre are. Debussy renounced it, saying "I am trying to do 'something different'- in a way realities- what the imbeciles call `impressionism' is a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by art critics."[1] Maurice Ravel composed many other pieces that aren't identified as Impressionist. Nonetheless, the term is widely used today to describe classical music seen as a reaction to 19th century Romanticism."

[avguste]

Please no pedal or at least very sparringly